In colder climates the indoor temperature is not always ideal for things like aquariums. This is especially true these days when most people have smart thermostats that turn down the temperature when there is no one in the house or everyone is sleeping. So what can be done to solve this issue? Well You can purchase a heater for the aquarium but what is the fun in that? Instead why not monitor the temperature and control the localized heat yourself. That is exactly what this LEGO NXT Aquarium Temperature Control byPlastiBots is doing.
“How does it work?
Pretty simple really. dSwitch allows you to programmatically control a 120V (also available in 240V for other countries) outlet to switch a power source on/off as desired. The NXT is programmed to monitor the temperature using the LEGO temperature sensor and the dSwitch NXT-G block is used to turn the light on and off based on temperature thresholds. My current setup has the dSwitch turn the light on when the water temperature is below 72F and turn it off when it hits 79F. With NXT-G I am also able to control how often it polls the temperature to ensure that the granularity of monitoring is over a longer period of time (e.g. we don’t want the light flicking on and off when the temp is near 72F and 79F). Currently I have it set to evaluate the temperature every 10 minutes and switch the light on/off as necessary.”